Art historian Aivars Leitis has accomplished a seemingly impossible mission – he has created a monograph about painter Jānis Staņislavs Roze – one of the most mysterious personalities in the early period of Latvian art.
"The painter’s path of life has always been in the focus of researchers’ interest. Great is their temptation to reconstruct it, even if only because part of his portraits has not lost significance until today and to underestimate his talent would be a clear sign of shortsightedness. Moreover, in many aspects Jānis Staņislavs Roze was the first discoverer in Latvian art," says Aivars Leitis.
The author has named his story about Jānis Staņislavs Roze "The Hypothesis of a Legend", being aware of the incompleteness and discrepancy of the information about the artist. It has added excitement to the research work, yet also restricted the authors’ possibilities to narrate the story in affirmative sentences. The result of the long-term research is very exciting as it opens up some unknown pages of the Latvian culture history. The captivating style of the narrative makes it an attractive literature for the widest circles of readers.